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Dix Pièces pittoresques

Recordings

'As to Hewitt's performances, they are as affectionate, warm, lyrical and charming as one could wish, underlining but not exaggerating Chabrier's deli ...'Hewitt is at her best here, teasing out the yearning harmonies and shy cadences with a persuasive rubato' (BBC Music Magazine)» More

A master pianist demonstrates his manifold talents in this delicious selection of French music. Works by Poulenc, Fauré, Debussy and Ravel rub shoulders with lesser-known gems by their contemporaries.» More

Details

Paysage, has a tripartite structure, with the first section repeated at the end. It seems to evoke a peaceful walk in a harmonious landscape, hardly troubled by a capricious passage of dance-like rhythms. The whole of this first episode is based on a motif of few notes, and Chabrier adopts a procedure, which he clearly did not invent but on which he leaves his own indelible mark: the melody rings out simultaneously in the right and left hands at a distance of two octaves. Then we hear the second section, without warning and without any connection with what we have just heard, which makes us wonder what sort of landscape Chabrier could be evoking.

Mélancolie is a most apt title. A mere eighteen bars long, it is one of the jewels of the collection. The most expressive theme, marked ‘tenderly’, is given to the right hand in the upper register of the piano and then repeated—a little transformed—with the melody played by both hands in syncopation. Of particular note is a very successful passage where the theme is presented as an echo. After a more animated outburst, the work appears to end loudly, but no: in the final bar the piano falls silent deep in the bass, as if suspended in a void.

While Poulenc, Fauré, Ravel and Debussy are, in their different ways, universally acknowledged, Chabrier’s sun has failed to rise as high. Listening to his music, this seems inexplicable, now as in his own era, when Ravel famously (though perhaps disingenuously) announced that he’d have been more proud of writing Chabrier’s opera Le roi malgré lui than the complete Wagner Ring. And Poulenc was to declare that the Pièces pittoresques were as crucial a part of French music as Debussy’s Préludes. Chabrier wrote the bulk of his Pièces pittoresques as a kind of holiday diary while staying on the coast at Saint-Pair-sur-Mer in 1880. He was crazy about the sea, finding it hugely inspirational, and promised to send his publisher a ‘little piece’ each week, though the response was hardly positive, his first offering being greeted with flat incomprehension. The unassuming Mélancolie, with its murmured dialogue between highest and lowest registers, is placed second in the set, and perhaps it is the gulf between the simple title of the collection and the subtlety of the music that puts off casual listeners.

Mélancolie is a most apt title. A mere eighteen bars long, it is one of the jewels of the collection. The most expressive theme, marked ‘tenderly’, is given to the right hand in the upper register of the piano and then repeated—a little transformed—with the melody played by both hands in syncopation. Of particular note is a very successful passage where the theme is presented as an echo. After a more animated outburst, the work appears to end loudly, but no: in the final bar the piano falls silent deep in the bass, as if suspended in a void.

Sous-bois is Chabrier’s most prophetic piece, and the most difficult of all his works to understand—making him the precursor of the entire Impressionist school. Over a basso ostinato, which hardly ever changes, Chabrier strings out notes that don’t properly constitute a theme but which create a pronounced hazy atmosphere, inspired no doubt by the canvases of his painter friends.

Mauresque must have been so-named because of the fashion of the time, which prized works with an exotic touch—compare the success of orientalist painters. The work is characterized above all by an omnipresent dotted rhythm. In moderate time, the graceful style almost makes it a menuet, even more so than the Menuet pompeux that follows later. The absence of augmented seconds—an interval characteristic of Moorish music—means that this piece does not really reflect its title.

Idylle, the jewel of the set, is a piece of utter delicacy, charm, tenderness and poetry. Chabrier requires it to be played with freshness and naivety. A very simple and moving melody, played legato, is delicately accompanied by two other voices, played slightly staccato. The piano writing is of great refinement and novelty. When Francis Poulenc first heard this piece on an early type of juke box, he never forgot the moment, later saying that for him it opened up ‘a new harmonic world’.

Danse villageoise is solidly constructed, bursting with health and filled with the rhythm of Auvergne clogs. The middle section is of great refinement, curiously and awkwardly accented on the last note of each bar.

Improvisation is descended directly from Schumann with the same Schwung, passion and Romanticism, and of course typical Chabrier hallmarks. The composer’s marking of fantasque et très passionné is significant. And in the course of the piece he adds ‘with impetuosity’. The basic melodic cell is extremely short, and practically the whole piece is constructed on these few notes. True to his temperament, Chabrier intersperses these ardent and passionate phrases with a few bars of exquisite tenderness which are not unlike certain Fauréan harmonies. The work ends with these delicately played bars—quite different from the brilliant peroration we might have expected.

The Menuet pompeux is, in effect, neither a minuet nor stately: it respects the tripartite form of the minuet but not its spirit. We are a long way from the precious and elegant courtly dance: these passionate dance-steps and the displaced accents which deliberately break the fearless rhythm of the minuet are more reminiscent of an Andalusian zapateado. As for the epithet ‘stately’, more appropriate alternatives may include ‘wild’ or ‘grating’. Chabrier’s later marking—‘with vigour’—simply does not accord with the character one would expect from a minuet. We move without transition to the central episode, which would indeed possess the graceful character of a minuet if its rhythm did not systematically disrupt the development. The first beat never falls in its expected place, which creates a curiously unstable effect—no doubt poetic, but which is at variance with the title of the piece.

The glowing Scherzo-valse is a fitting conclusion to this suite. Everything here breathes unequivocal gaiety and the most unbridled truculence, including the quieter second episode, despite the pattering of its staccato notes. Seven years after composing the Pièces pittoresques, Chabrier orchestrated four of them under the title of Suite pastorale: ‘Idylle’, ‘Danse villageoise’, ‘Sous-bois’ and ‘Scherzo-valse’.

The glowing Scherzo-valse is a fitting conclusion to this suite. Everything here breathes unequivocal gaiety and the most unbridled truculence, including the quieter second episode, despite the pattering of its staccato notes. Seven years after composing the Pièces pittoresques, Chabrier orchestrated four of them under the title of Suite pastorale: ‘Idylle’, ‘Danse villageoise’, ‘Sous-bois’ and ‘Scherzo-valse’.